1. Technical Field
The technology relates to the field of fluid storage tanks, and more particularly to the fabrication of large above-ground storage tanks that can be used to contain brine, for example, in connection with oil and gas production.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been an increasing demand for energy world-wide. As a result, many different technologies are being used to meet this demand, and many are under development. Current technologies include, for example, traditional oil and gas production, secondary and enhanced oil and gas recovery techniques, coal production, use of solar panels and wind turbines to generate electricity, production of bio-fuels, use of ocean waves to generate electricity, and the use of nuclear reactors to generate electricity. It is known that in several parts of the world there are large subterranean reservoirs of natural gas, a desirable clean burning fuel, held in relatively impermeable geological formations. The relative impermeability of these formations presents a challenge to the production of these gas reserves because the gas is “tightly held” within the formations and cannot readily flow to a production well.
The technique of hydraulic fracturing of impermeable subterranean formations is being used to produce gas from relatively impermeable formations. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking” or “hydro-fracking,” is a technology that fractures underground formations creating flow pathways for release of the trapped natural gas and production of that gas for commercial purposes.
During gas production, “brine” containing injected chemicals is produced. This brine must be disposed of in an environmentally acceptable manner. In addition, the fracking operation typically consumes large amounts of water for hydraulic fracturing of the formations. So, before fracking there is a need for short term storage of the hydro-fracking fluid, and after fracking there is a need to store the brine produced.
Brine may be stored above ground in storage tanks for a period of time. There are several different tank designs. However, they should preferably meet criteria of durability and resistance to leaks under the conditions of use, and should be relatively easy and inexpensive to transport and construct. In the case of some above-ground tank designs that require conjoining a series of wall sections, there are significant challenges on site in handling the heavy metal wall sections. Each wall section is hoisted by a crane and guided into place next to other already installed wall sections. In order to join wall sections together, depending upon the nature of the mechanical joining, it is often necessary to get alignment between the wall sections and overlap of the wall edges. Once aligned, the sections are joined together with mechanical connectors. To facilitate joining heavy wall sections together, workers have to manipulate the wall sections into appropriate position relative to each other. The use of manpower in proximity to heavy wall sections, while man-handling the wall sections, poses an issue of potential risk to the worker. In addition, the use of additional manpower to guide the wall sections incurs labor costs.